The Spiteful (Trapped.1)

Pain.

My eyes opened, but that didn’t help me see much. Most of my view was dark, a few flickering lights. I was too woozy to see properly. The indicators on my helmet’s display were fuzzy, all yellow and flashing red lights. Very little green. My head was in too much pain to think too hard about it, but I knew that wasn’t a good sign.

Beyond the display, I was staring up into complete darkness. I could hear the alarm chirping, though. A small, insistent beep every few seconds. The radios were silent- nothing but crackling, eerie noise. 

The worst thing I could hear- the sound that turned my blood to ice when I realized what it was- was the hissing.

I was losing pressure.

My training was pretty clear. Slowly, trying not to panic, I controlled my breathing. I tried closing my eyes for a long moment, focusing, and opening them again. They focused enough that I could see, at least enough to read.

The readouts weren’t good. My pack was connected, still, but it had taken damage. The oxygen recycler was all in the reds.

My headlamp was flickering, and beyond that, all I could see was a rock ceiling. All crammed together, flecks of glinting blue light embedded in the stone.

Half of my view was obscured. There was blood all over the inside of the helmet, where I’d smashed my face into it. I carefully inspected it, eyes darting this way and that- and there. I saw the small bubbles forming in my visor, the point the hissing was coming from. My visor was cracked, and it was losing air.

Slowly, carefully, I reached for my equipment pouch. My hand brushed against my hip where it should have been, only to find the surface of my suit.

“Shit,” I hissed. The radio crackled in response, some kind of feedback issue. I pressed my palm against the crack. The hissing got much, much quieter. Which would have to do for now.

I continued lying on my back, staring up at the ceiling, and thumbed my radio with my other hand.

“Right, uh. This is Vree,” I called out. “Argos Mining, Employee oh-three-oh-two. Anyone hear me?”

No response. Just the static spiking again. I took a deep breath, trying to keep my heartrate- and o2 consumption- low.

Worse, the sound of my own voice made my head pound again. The pain wasn’t quite blinding, but my vision refused to focus for a few minutes while I lay there.

I gave myself that time. I needed the time to gather myself, to force myself to stay calm. I glanced at my readout again. It said I had hours left… But my hand patching the visor wasn’t a perfect seal. I assumed I’d have less time than that. Best estimates... Half that, if I couldn’t get this sealed.

The flickering headlamp was giving me a headache. With my free hand, I rapped a knuckle against it- and it went out.

I hissed again... and gave it another whack, harder this time. It came back on, and wasn’t flickering nearly as badly this time.

My suit was an Argos Miner’s rig, and I knew the specs inside and out. Their radios were good. The one thing they splurged on, considering the dangerous situations they ran into, chasing after whatever contract they could find like dogs chasing a bone. And if they couldn’t pick up my transmission or respond, then that meant I was… Well, fucked, to sum it up.

But I wasn’t one to just lay down and die. 

I tried moving my legs… But they were pinned. Locked in place. They shifted a bit, but not a lot. I looked down… and my legs were buried under rubble. So was most of me. They didn’t seem hurt, or even underpressured, so I wasn’t completely fucked. No broken limbs or rips, as far as my legs went. These suits are pretty durable, visor aside.

The mine had caved in. That was clear, more than anything. The heavy driller had broken through to a new chamber, and then it’d gotten stuck. Because it was a piece of shit. I was trying to get it running again, when something shifted above us, and…

Well, here I was.

Slowly, carefully, I began removing rocks from my thighs. Then loosening the rubble around my legs. 

Slowly, I sat up. My head continued to pound, but I didn’t think it was bleeding anymore. From there, I slowly got to my feet, and looked around.

I could see the front end of the driller poking out under the rubble. The outer casing was dented pretty badly, but it was a tough piece of shit. Worthless, buried like this.

Ahead, the rest of the new cavern. Whatever Lin’s contract wanted, it was apparently there. It fit all the signs Lin had been looking for, just an order of magnitude stronger. Gravitational distortion, EM field, everything.

Heh. Maybe I’ll grab it before I die. That way they’ll at least have to pry it out of my hand to finish the contract.

But no. I had to figure out how to survive first. And that meant a seal.

My tools were missing, and so were my emergency supplies. No bonding agent, no patches. Not even a strip of duct tape.

But it didn’t mean I was completely hopeless. I pulled off my pack, careful not to disconnect my o2 link, and pulled open the small compartment on top.

The oxygen recycler was destroyed. It wasn’t recoverable. But there were filters, and in those filters and reclaimant systems was something important.

I took small portions of the regolith,the natural dirt around the cavern, and held a clump tightly over the canister as I twisted off the dial. Small streams and spurts of moisture- reclaimed sweat and vapor from my lungs, oozed out, dampening and moisturizing the dirt. 

I had mud… but it alone wouldn’t be enough. The moisture would subliminate, but it would be too porous after it dried to be a completely perfect seal.

I glanced at the still-lit lamp of the driller’s headlight. It was lit.

Light meant power… which meant heat.

I didn’t know how well this visor melted… but I’d find out.

===

I still couldn’t see out of one side of my helmet. It wasn’t just the blood anymore, but it was the distortion- the melted, warped plastics of the helmet from how I’d fused it together. It was as airtight as it would get, and I’d slathered the mud over it just to be safe.

“Hello?” I thumbed my radio again. “Vree here. I’m on the other side of the driller. Can you read me?”

Nothing but static. Which, now that I think about it, doesn’t really make a lot of sense. The tunnel wasn’t that long. The elevator shaft should have transceivers along the entire vertical length of the lift, along with power and emergency oxy pipes. It’s only a few hundred meters away, and the radios on my suit should really be strong enough to be picked up.

So either it’s damaged, or somehow the entire mining facility has been fucked.

Or maybe… it’s something to do with the weird EM field that Lin wanted.

If this material can fuck with gravity and electromagnetism, maybe it could even disrupt the radio. I slowly made my way through. My headlamp kept flickering- a loose wire- and suddenly, I felt lighter. It had been point-eight Gees before, but as I stepped through and into the anomaly, it was nearly half that. At the same time, my radio got even worse, giving off a constant hum- something like a jamming signal I was half hopping, and there were floating glints of blue material hovering in place, suspended by nothing but the anomaly.

I poked one, and it nudged itself out of the air, drifting slightly- and a moment later, it drifted back.

Caelumite. No wonder Lin’s contact wanted to find anomalies like this. The exotic material was needed for gravtech of all sorts- Drives, particle weapons, habitat modules… And this was a lot. More than I was worth. Hell, more than the entire mining outfit was worth.

Thing is, normally, caleumite didn’t carry a charge like this. Especially not the natural stuff. You needed to feed it with a grav drive, first- then you could thread the floor of your hab with it for artificial gravity, or power a particle accelerator.

I knew the science, at its most basic, but this wasn’t how the science was supposed to work.

I got closer and closer to the anomaly, and the gravity got lighter and lighter. Eventually, I saw it. Lodged between  a stalagmite and stalactite of caelumite, like they had grown toward the thing… was a long, curved piece of metal.

It couldn’t have grown naturally. The metal didn’t even look like any sort of natural formation at all. The curvature was too perfect. Symbols were etched into the sides with laser precision. Only the small growths of caelumite and the grime of sitting in this cave for who-knows-how-long marred its surface.

I didn’t understand how it could be holding any kind of charge. How it could be perpetuating the anomaly… but I had a theory, and that theory had to do with the structure that had grown around it. 

As a technician and a bit of a nerd, creating things could be a delicate process. It required intricate knowledge of the physics involved, careful engineering, and a steady hand.

Destroying something, on the other hand…

I took two low-grav hops back… and then launched myself forward.

My foot slammed into the object- 

And I saw the Universe.

===

This is a Starfield fanfiction. Well, technically, I wouldn't call myself a 'fan' of Starfield. But I feel there's so much to the setting, so much that can be added and played with, it became a brainworm. Vree Gannon is a pretty interesting character I've had in mind for a certain kind of story, and it turns out this will be that story.

Like Applied Metaphysics, this is one of those fics where you guys will have an extra chapter to view ahead of time. I'm still working on AM, and I'm still aiming to have at least one update a month for it. This is just a side-project.

Oh, yeah, and this is a multicross. Any good Starfield fic is going to be by neccessity.